Morraez, Godspeaker
Legendary Creature- Elf Shaman
First Strike, Trample
Morraez, Godspeaker gets +1/+0 for each creature you control.
Whenever one or more creatures deal combat damage to a player, populate.
0/5
Domin of the Broken Spire
Legendary Creature- Human Artificer
Whenever a noncreature permanent you control is destroyed, you may pay . If you do, create an X/X colorless golem creature token.
2/3
Ironclaw, Focused Savagery
Legendary Creature- Human werewolf
Vigilance, Haste
When Ironclaw, Focused Savagery enters the battlefield, create a 2/2 green wolf creature token.
Attacking creatures get +X/+0, where X is the highest power among creature tokens you control.
2/4
Montuga, Primal Purity
Legendary Creature- Ogre Shaman
Creatures without activated or triggered abilities gain haste, vigilance, and hexproof.
3/3
Hazegon, Lord of Duplicity
Legendary Creature- Shapeshifter
Face-down creatures have hexproof.
At the beginning of your end step, you may exile any number of creatures you control with morph, shuffle them, and return them to the battlefield face-down under their owners' control.
3/3
Nar, Beast Trader
Legendary Creature- Goblin Mercenary
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, draw a card unless that player allows you to reveal the top card of your library. If a creature card is revealed in this way, put it onto the battlefield under your control. Otherwise, shuffle your library.
Zamm, Ghostflame Aspirant
Legendary Creature- Human Monk
Zamm, Ghostflame Aspirant is colorless. : Target creature can't block colorless creatures this turn. : Target creature must block a colorless creature this turn if able. : Target colorless creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
2/2
Personal Predictions (far too detailed and totally wrong):
Naya Populate: Will include elements of "going wide" as well as "going tall" (with one Beast of Burden esque "go wide commander", one commander that creates a big token, and one commander that attempts to join these themes in a brudiclad-esque manner (maybe a Pathbreaker Ibex effect for tokens?)
Sultai Flashback: Will include elements of self-mill (a la satyr wayfinder) with recursion elements but will ultimately appear to be a generic BUG value deck where the flashback ends up being the weakest part of it. Will include a spells matter sultai card, a self-mill commander (maybe something that takes advantage of large deck size with an arc-slogger esque effect), and a commander that rewards you for casting cards from graveyard.
Rakdos Madness: Will be a discard themed deck. Will include multiplayer discard cards like burglar rat and waste not, numerous symmetrical effects (such as reforge the soul or delirium skeins), and some light prison elements. With possible inclusions like Painful Quandary, Oppression, Sadistic Hypnotist, and Mindslicer, we may be looking at some okay value. Commanders will include a commander that punishes small hand sizes, an aggro commander that wants you to go hellbent, and a card that generates card advantage for everyone at the cost of randomness (think a Teferi's Puzzle Box that draws shuffled # of cards + 1).
Temur Morph: Hidden Information deck. In addition to morph, I expect to see a few cards that also deal in hidden information (like Master of Predicaments, Lurking Predators, Jeskai Infiltrator, a hideaway land or two, and the blue or green member of the "secretly choose a player" megacycle from the past 2 years). Our commanders will be a "Morph tribal" commander, One that seriously messes with combat math OR one that makes one or more players make guesses, and a "colorless matters" commander a la Ugin.
So... even if specific mechanics are this year's "thing", I would envision the themes in a more broad sense so we don't get a repeat of the "Jund Lands" disappointment.
Like, I'm imagining a hidden information deck, a discard deck, a token deck, and a self-mill graveyard deck. All of those could potentially be fun even if you don't like the specific mechanic being "featured".
Green one is an overpriced reclamation sage with +2 toughness... which could get its effect on the same turn you could cast the sage anyway. Grab fog or giant growth and we'll start talking.
Red one is more color intensive fire imp. Even with mana screw/storm/spell matters upside, I can't imagine getting too excited by this guy out of standard.
Blue is genuinely interesting as it can loop and is essentially a better aether adept.
Black one technically costs the same as Nekratal/ chupacabra but can be used on the same turn as Boneshredder, which is a sweet spot for cost that similar creatures haven't used.
The white one is my favorite, I think. Cost efficient dude that blanks a lightning bolt/survives a combat is pretty nice.
In spite of my criticisms, though, I could imagine this cycle popping up in a standard set some day.
Haunting Echo
Creature- Spirit
Flying
Haunting Echo costs less to cast for each exiled card.
4/4
Soalam Grazer
Creature- Beast
Cycling- Exile four cards from your graveyard.
2/4
Flickering Sprite
Creature- Faerie
Flash
Flying
Pay 2 life: Return target nonland permanent you control to its owner's hand.
2/2
Frontline Charger
Creature- Minotaur Soldier
If it is your first turn, Frontline Charget costs less to cast.
3/3
Personal Demons
Creature- Demon Illusion
Whenever a creature card is put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere other than the battlefield, you may return Personal Demon from your graveyard onto the battlefield tapped.
3/3
Ingenious Student
Creature- Human Wizard
When Ingenious Student enters the battlefield, you may return any number of instant and/or sorcery cards from your graveyard with a summed converted mana cost of 4 or less to your hand.
1/2
Vortigoth
Creature- Jellyfish Insect
When Vortigoth enters the battlefield, untap up to four target permanents.
4/4
Seething Rage
Creature- Incarnation
As an additional cost to casting Seething Rage, sacrifice a creature or pay
Menace
5/1
Doomskitter
Creature- Scorpion
Death Touch
When doomskitter enters the battlefield, exile any number of cards from your graveyard, then put that many cards from the top of your library into your graveyard.
1/3
Willful Mammoth
Creature- Elephant
Willful Mammoth costs less to cast, where X is the summed power of all creatures you control.
5/5
Barbed Retort
Instant
Deal 1 damage to any target.
Splice onto instant or sorcery "What's your point?"
-Evarra Everspell, Last Words
Biomass Cultivator
Creature- Elf Merfolk
Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, if no mana was spent on it, you may put a creature card with converted mana cost 4 or less from your hand onto the battlefield.
2/2
Verdant Haven
Enchantment
Players may cast creature spells with converted mana cost X or less without paying their mana costs, where X is the number of lands that player controls.
This card may actually be cheap enough for consideration as a card draw engine in Mono-White EDH decks... After the traditional trio of Clamp/Top/Rack, this looks like the next cheapest reusable card draw engine that can come online as of turn 2.
Then again, I picked up on that when I realized that the flavor text on the dragon-related cards in red are the last words of a traditional adventuring party. Seriously, go check.
As far as the card itself, any EDH deck that runs a ton of Windfall effects will get a ton of mileage from this bad boy.
1. Cost efficient body that attacks and defends
2. Nice defensive ability for your whole crew
3. Cost reduction works well with most hydras, even those without x in their cost.
While it isn't gruul, there are only 5 hydra-related red cards I am interested in (apocalypse/savageborn/molten hydra, ulasht, and meanderer) so I'm willing to make that trade off.
As for the blue cavalier, that card is absolutely blufftastic! Do I want to draw those 2 cards back (please let my guy live) or is the top of my library dead (I benefit if this guy dies)? As both abilities are decent and the body is good, this cavalier may see some actual play.
Honestly, this is a decent card for standard. I'm sure that this card will see some play as it's a halfway decent toolbox for someone with at least one creature out.
Unfortunately, this card has the bad fortune of having the same mana cost, same starting loyalty, and similar ult to Karn, Grand Creator. When you start making that (fairly natural, I think) comparison, Vivien kind of sucks. Vivien doesn't dive into that wishboard immediately, relies on you having a board presence to do anything the turn it comes out, doesn't have a powerful passive that enables an instant 2-card combo, doesn't have the flexibility of that colorless mana cost, and generally fetches a more fragile card type.
I wish that she started with 5 loyalty so she could search right away. I wish that the first ability was +2 so you don't have to wait 2 turns for her to survive after ulting. I wish that her ult allowed her to grab cards from exile like Karn did. I wished that she cost 2GG so more decks could use here. At the end of the day though, we got what we got.
So yeah. Vivien isn't exactly "bad" but she's standing right next to a card that broke into eternal formats.
Guys... we haven't had a usable (Whisper doesn't count) 4-mana reanimator spell in ages.
When I first started this game, we had Zombify... then Rigor Mortis... then dread return... and unburial rites...
I don't think we've seen any real reanimator for under 5 mana (other than super limited ones like claim//fame or Revival//Revenge) since then... which would make it 8 years since straight-up reanimator decks (as opposed to the golgari value engines we've seen recently) had some serious gas.
Morraez, Godspeaker
Legendary Creature- Elf Shaman
First Strike, Trample
Morraez, Godspeaker gets +1/+0 for each creature you control.
Whenever one or more creatures deal combat damage to a player, populate.
0/5
Domin of the Broken Spire
Legendary Creature- Human Artificer
Whenever a noncreature permanent you control is destroyed, you may pay
2/3
Ironclaw, Focused Savagery
Legendary Creature- Human werewolf
Vigilance, Haste
When Ironclaw, Focused Savagery enters the battlefield, create a 2/2 green wolf creature token.
Attacking creatures get +X/+0, where X is the highest power among creature tokens you control.
2/4
Montuga, Primal Purity
Legendary Creature- Ogre Shaman
Creatures without activated or triggered abilities gain haste, vigilance, and hexproof.
3/3
Hazegon, Lord of Duplicity
Legendary Creature- Shapeshifter
Face-down creatures have hexproof.
At the beginning of your end step, you may exile any number of creatures you control with morph, shuffle them, and return them to the battlefield face-down under their owners' control.
3/3
Nar, Beast Trader
Legendary Creature- Goblin Mercenary
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, draw a card unless that player allows you to reveal the top card of your library. If a creature card is revealed in this way, put it onto the battlefield under your control. Otherwise, shuffle your library.
Zamm, Ghostflame Aspirant
Legendary Creature- Human Monk
Zamm, Ghostflame Aspirant is colorless.
2/2
May follow up with the other two decks later.
Naya Populate: Will include elements of "going wide" as well as "going tall" (with one Beast of Burden esque "go wide commander", one commander that creates a big token, and one commander that attempts to join these themes in a brudiclad-esque manner (maybe a Pathbreaker Ibex effect for tokens?)
Sultai Flashback: Will include elements of self-mill (a la satyr wayfinder) with recursion elements but will ultimately appear to be a generic BUG value deck where the flashback ends up being the weakest part of it. Will include a spells matter sultai card, a self-mill commander (maybe something that takes advantage of large deck size with an arc-slogger esque effect), and a commander that rewards you for casting cards from graveyard.
Rakdos Madness: Will be a discard themed deck. Will include multiplayer discard cards like burglar rat and waste not, numerous symmetrical effects (such as reforge the soul or delirium skeins), and some light prison elements. With possible inclusions like Painful Quandary, Oppression, Sadistic Hypnotist, and Mindslicer, we may be looking at some okay value. Commanders will include a commander that punishes small hand sizes, an aggro commander that wants you to go hellbent, and a card that generates card advantage for everyone at the cost of randomness (think a Teferi's Puzzle Box that draws shuffled # of cards + 1).
Temur Morph: Hidden Information deck. In addition to morph, I expect to see a few cards that also deal in hidden information (like Master of Predicaments, Lurking Predators, Jeskai Infiltrator, a hideaway land or two, and the blue or green member of the "secretly choose a player" megacycle from the past 2 years). Our commanders will be a "Morph tribal" commander, One that seriously messes with combat math OR one that makes one or more players make guesses, and a "colorless matters" commander a la Ugin.
Like, I'm imagining a hidden information deck, a discard deck, a token deck, and a self-mill graveyard deck. All of those could potentially be fun even if you don't like the specific mechanic being "featured".
Red one is more color intensive fire imp. Even with mana screw/storm/spell matters upside, I can't imagine getting too excited by this guy out of standard.
Blue is genuinely interesting as it can loop and is essentially a better aether adept.
Black one technically costs the same as Nekratal/ chupacabra but can be used on the same turn as Boneshredder, which is a sweet spot for cost that similar creatures haven't used.
The white one is my favorite, I think. Cost efficient dude that blanks a lightning bolt/survives a combat is pretty nice.
In spite of my criticisms, though, I could imagine this cycle popping up in a standard set some day.
Haunting Echo
Creature- Spirit
Flying
Haunting Echo costs
4/4
Soalam Grazer
Creature- Beast
Cycling- Exile four cards from your graveyard.
2/4
Flickering Sprite
Creature- Faerie
Flash
Flying
Pay 2 life: Return target nonland permanent you control to its owner's hand.
2/2
Frontline Charger
Creature- Minotaur Soldier
If it is your first turn, Frontline Charget costs
3/3
Personal Demons
Creature- Demon Illusion
Whenever a creature card is put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere other than the battlefield, you may return Personal Demon from your graveyard onto the battlefield tapped.
3/3
Ingenious Student
Creature- Human Wizard
When Ingenious Student enters the battlefield, you may return any number of instant and/or sorcery cards from your graveyard with a summed converted mana cost of 4 or less to your hand.
1/2
Vortigoth
Creature- Jellyfish Insect
When Vortigoth enters the battlefield, untap up to four target permanents.
4/4
Seething Rage
Creature- Incarnation
As an additional cost to casting Seething Rage, sacrifice a creature or pay
Menace
5/1
Doomskitter
Creature- Scorpion
Death Touch
When doomskitter enters the battlefield, exile any number of cards from your graveyard, then put that many cards from the top of your library into your graveyard.
1/3
Willful Mammoth
Creature- Elephant
Willful Mammoth costs
5/5
Barbed Retort
Instant
Deal 1 damage to any target.
Splice onto instant or sorcery
"What's your point?"
-Evarra Everspell, Last Words
Biomass Cultivator
Creature- Elf Merfolk
Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, if no mana was spent on it, you may put a creature card with converted mana cost 4 or less from your hand onto the battlefield.
2/2
Verdant Haven
Enchantment
Players may cast creature spells with converted mana cost X or less without paying their mana costs, where X is the number of lands that player controls.
This card may actually be cheap enough for consideration as a card draw engine in Mono-White EDH decks... After the traditional trio of Clamp/Top/Rack, this looks like the next cheapest reusable card draw engine that can come online as of turn 2.
Risen Reef gets a bunch of triggers.
Overgrowth Elemental grows off of the casualties.
Yarok's Wavecrasher recycles it.
Lavakin Brawler grows off of it.
Creeping Trailblazer synergizes freakishly well
Yeah, this is a premium limited card.
Then again, I picked up on that when I realized that the flavor text on the dragon-related cards in red are the last words of a traditional adventuring party. Seriously, go check.
As far as the card itself, any EDH deck that runs a ton of Windfall effects will get a ton of mileage from this bad boy.
Decent limited card
The Hydra Legend is nice!
1. Cost efficient body that attacks and defends
2. Nice defensive ability for your whole crew
3. Cost reduction works well with most hydras, even those without x in their cost.
While it isn't gruul, there are only 5 hydra-related red cards I am interested in (apocalypse/savageborn/molten hydra, ulasht, and meanderer) so I'm willing to make that trade off.
As for the blue cavalier, that card is absolutely blufftastic! Do I want to draw those 2 cards back (please let my guy live) or is the top of my library dead (I benefit if this guy dies)? As both abilities are decent and the body is good, this cavalier may see some actual play.
crash through, crimson wisps, dragon mantle, expedite, overmaster, renegade tactics, and warlord’s fury would all work for this purpose and effectively lower the amount of cards in your deck, promoting consistency.
Honestly, this is a decent card for standard. I'm sure that this card will see some play as it's a halfway decent toolbox for someone with at least one creature out.
Unfortunately, this card has the bad fortune of having the same mana cost, same starting loyalty, and similar ult to Karn, Grand Creator. When you start making that (fairly natural, I think) comparison, Vivien kind of sucks. Vivien doesn't dive into that wishboard immediately, relies on you having a board presence to do anything the turn it comes out, doesn't have a powerful passive that enables an instant 2-card combo, doesn't have the flexibility of that colorless mana cost, and generally fetches a more fragile card type.
I wish that she started with 5 loyalty so she could search right away. I wish that the first ability was +2 so you don't have to wait 2 turns for her to survive after ulting. I wish that her ult allowed her to grab cards from exile like Karn did. I wished that she cost 2GG so more decks could use here. At the end of the day though, we got what we got.
So yeah. Vivien isn't exactly "bad" but she's standing right next to a card that broke into eternal formats.
When I first started this game, we had Zombify... then Rigor Mortis... then dread return... and unburial rites...
I don't think we've seen any real reanimator for under 5 mana (other than super limited ones like claim//fame or Revival//Revenge) since then... which would make it 8 years since straight-up reanimator decks (as opposed to the golgari value engines we've seen recently) had some serious gas.
The Seb artwork is just the icing on the cake.